Is Abolishing the Police the Answer to Injustice?

Current and ongoing calls to abolish or defund the police resonate with many prisoners. Of course the idea of being able to behave however one wishes without legal restraint sounds good to people who have already demonstrated a resistance to authority. What better way to get away with further crime than to abolish the very institution that enforces the law?

The audacity of such revolutionary reforms as abolishing the police is self-evident. Who will respond the next time one of these "revolutionaries" needs emergency help? Community policing will not resolve many emergency situations or protect the public from community menaces. Who will hold offenders responsible when they abuse children, batter spouses, or rob, rape, or murder innocents? Surely those calling for the abolition of police departments do not intend to reinstate private retribution? Imagine the injustices that will flow from that ideology. 

Recent actions by some police officers, including those who murdered George Floyd, highlight the persistence of police misconduct and racial injustices. Doing nothing or maintaining the status quo will certainly not resolve the tension that has been boiling over into nationwide protests and demonstrations. Something needs to change, but abolishing the police is plain lunacy. 

Better, more consistent, and humane training of police officers is a great start. So is transparency from police departments about officer complaints and disciplinary actions. Another urgently needed reform is abolishing qualified immunity. I've written here in the past about abolishing qualified immunity for prosecutors. No law enforcement officer should be safe from prosecution for intentionally breaking the law. What sort of message does that send to the rest of us who are held accountable for breaking the law? 

While we're talking about police reforms, let's also address police practices that target the poor and racial minorities? Laws should be equally enforced, not unjustly applied with more force and regularity towards people of color and lower economic status. That means holding people in power accountable with equal regularity and equal force as the rest of us "little people." 

I'm in favor of more community involvement in the justice system, just not a total replacement of police departments. For example, indigenous people often use communal counsels and healing circles to address crime in their communities. This involves a restorative approach to justice, seeking to heal the harms caused to victims and the community at large while aiming also to reintegrate the offender back into good community standing. Nevertheless, not all offenders will be amenable to such approaches and may require a more punitive methodology, at least initially. 

Democracy demands that the people rise up and demand change when injustice prevails and people in power fail to act. But groupthink has never been an intelligent approach to policymaking. Angry responses to injustice are justifiable, and radical ideas are sometimes called for. Abolishing the police, though, is more likely to lead to greater injustice, not reduce it. Just ask the prisoners outside my window who can't wait to go to communities where the police have been abolished.